Tag: nature

Raising Large White Butterflies (2025 edition)

On By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography3 Comments

Hello my friends,

Happy weekend!!

I’ve got a new butterfly tale for you this week. I’m a great lover of ‘Cabbage butterflies’ they’re pretty much considered a pest and we as humans seem to actively seek and destroy them, which I find really sad so its become fairly well known that I purposely grow cabbages for the butterflies as I view them as a butterfly underdog. 

Anyway, this post began last autumn when the last batch of Large white (Pieris brassicas) caterpillars were happily munching on the last of my cabbages just as the rainy season started. I moved them (cabbage and all) into my butterfly house where they began to pupate over the next few days – these butterflies overwinter in the pupa stage and emerge in spring. So I had 43 of these pupa to guard over the cold moths. (if you want to see a reel of one after its release click HERE *link takes you to my IG*)

Excitingly these butterflies all successfully emerged and were released back at the end of April, Large whites are funny they don’t like to breed indoors but the minute they’re outside they mate left, right and centre, one of the females laid a batch of eggs on my Honesty plants, as my cabbages weren’t very big – unfortunately I didn’t spot the tiny caterpillars until I’d cut the plant down, so feeling guilty I bought them a tray of baby cabbage plants and moved them to safety. 

They ate me out of house and home!

Continue reading “Raising Large White Butterflies (2025 edition)” →

Embroidered Butterfly #15 {Silver Studded Blue}

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs2 Comments

Hello my friends! 

How’s the heat where you are?

A couple of weeks ago I posted a One frame of a Silver studded Blue butterfly I recently met a Cubert Common while adventuring in the sunshine.

It was so cool to see an increasingly rare species just living its best life out in the wild – although that being said according to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust, thousands of them have been spotted here this summer which is awesome!

These tiny blue butterflies have a real life wingspan of only 3cm how anything that small survives in the wild is beyond me! I created a male and female as this type of butterfly has whats called Sexual dimorphism  which basically means you can tell the boys from the girls.

My needlework Silver studded blues have a wingspan of about 6cm and they’re #15 of my needlework butterfly quest, the male is the lovely blue one (all the ones I’ve seen have been male) and the little brown one is the much more reserved female.

Continue reading “Embroidered Butterfly #15 {Silver Studded Blue}” →

Wandering through a meadow!

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography2 Comments

Hey friends! How are ya? 

Did you know that the first Saturday in July is National Meadows day!? 

Me neither!!

When I discovered Meadows Day was a thing and that it was this weekend I changed my mind on what I wanted to post and feverishly spent some time typing and getting some photos together, only to realise how late it had gotten, so I decided to post it today instead.

Still, better late than never…

According to the dictionary a meadow is ‘a field with grass and often has wild flowers in it.’ I love visiting meadows, wandering through the long grass searching for butterflies, listening to the birds singing and hoping not to attract any ticks.

So I thought I’d share some meadow related snaps from some of my recent adventures!

Meadows have been part of the English landscape for over a thousand years. A meadow is traditionally an area of grassland which is left to grow long through the spring and summer months and then cut for hay and turned into animal feed for during the winter.

One of my favourite things to do when adventuring is to spend some time just sitting amongst the long grass, listening to the buzzing…if you look closely there is actually a bee on the Knapweed in the centre of the shot – I didn’t realise until I looked back at the days photos.

Continue reading “Wandering through a meadow!” →

Silver Studded Blue {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography4 Comments

Hello my friends! 

I did it I finally sat and typed something up for my blog for my self imposed Fri/Sat deadline!!

Recently I’ve been out on a few adventures and exploring nature filled places. I find being out in the wild to be so soothing and being outdoors comes with the added bonus of finding some new things to snap and share with you…

I recently spent a sunny day wandering around a wonderful little National trust place called Cubert Common, which is such a beautiful landscape to visit. I even met some new butterflies, specifically Silver-Studded blues! Including this one, isn’t he lovely?! 

Silver-Studded blue (Plebejus argus) is considered to be another of our butterflies that is becoming increasingly rare so it was awesome to see over twenty of them enjoying the sunshine! Literally I’ve taken so many photos of them!!

This small butterfly which has a wingspan of around 3cm is found mainly in heathland where they fly low over the heather – their main caterpillar food plant.

The males are a vibrant blue like this one, while the females are actually browning and nowhere near as showy, both sexes have distinct metallic spots on the lower underwing – these tiny markings are used to help distinguish them from the equally lovely Common Blue.

I cannot get over how pretty they are, they have such big eyes and cute stripy antennae.

I really hope you like this photo and that my nature filled posts spread a little bit of happiness in your direction.

As always thanks for reading and have a wonderful week!

Ps. If you want to see more of Cubert Common why not check out one of my previous posts about it HERE!

Embroidered Butterfly #14 {Dingy Skipper}

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs7 Comments

Greetings friends! 

Once again I missed my Friday/Saturday posting day, and have landed on a Sunday (again!) so I think I should just change my posting day to sometime-between-Friday-and-Sunday! I might just be able to stick with that over the summer…the sunshine is just too distracting and I tend to put off sitting and physically typing up until last minute and then find I dislike the photos I’ve taken for said post (which is what happened this week the original ones were really dark).

Still, I’ve got a new needlework butterfly to share with you! I became quite attached to the teeny tiny Dingy Skipper I met during my recent exploration of Penhale Dunes and I wanted to create one to add to my ever growing collection of handmade butterflies. 

This is #14 on my Embroidered Butterfly challenge – only 62 more to go!!! If I can make at least one a month that means it should only take like another four or so years!

Dingy Skipper (Erynnis tages) is found in Britain and Ireland but becoming kinda rare. Its grey-brown wings are covered with mottled brown markings and two lines of white spots.

Continue reading “Embroidered Butterfly #14 {Dingy Skipper}” →

Raising a surprise Small Tortoiseshell

On By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography9 Comments

Hey friends! I’ve got a new Butterfly Tale for you this week!!

Again I missed my Friday/Saturday posting day, but hey it’s only Sunday!

I’ve had a chance to raise a new surprise butterfly, a surprise Small Tortoiseshell butterfly to be precise. A few weeks ago I was sitting quietly in the garden enjoying an afternoon in the sun when this little guy crawled up my arm.

Honestly I jumped out of my skin!

Funky looking ain’t he?

Anyway this fellow is a Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) and are a medium/large sized butterfly with a wing span of up to 5.5cm, and are one of our most top 5 butterflies who use the common ol’ nettle as its food plant.

Continue reading “Raising a surprise Small Tortoiseshell” →

Exploring Penhale Dunes {Landscapes and butterflies}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography8 Comments

Hello my Friends!

Guess what?! I did it again…I really need to learn that when scheduling posts I need to actually set them schedule not draft (rookie mistake!!).

This weeks post comes courtesy of all the lovely weather we’ve been having as I recently spent some time exploring Penhale Dunes.

It was beautiful.

Penhale dunes is an amazing set of really tall (90 metres in places) Atlantic facing sand dunes, the area is classed as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and spans a whopping 620 hectares.

Continue reading “Exploring Penhale Dunes {Landscapes and butterflies}” →

Floral folklore #2

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography5 Comments

Hello my friends! 

How are you?!

I skipped last week because its been so sunny here its really quite distracting and I love it, the plants have tripled in size and I’ve already had ten different types of butterfly in the garden!

This week I thought I’d post another floral folklore, I’m always surprised by how folklore changes the way we interact with the plants around us so I’ve chosen three plants currently flowering in the wildspace all with purple-ish hues!

These lovely little Cuckoo flowers (Cardamine pratensis) pop up all over the garden in spring and they are so delicate, in English speaking countries they actually have a few other names – Lady’s smock/Mayflower or Milkmaids and are actually a member of the same plant family as cabbages!

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The Wizard Tree {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography4 Comments

Hello my Friends!

This weeks One Frame post was snapped while hiking through one of my favourite hiking spots. 

I call it The Wizard Tree! 

Is it just a tree with amusingly placed leaves or is it a wizard, turned into a tree during a wizards duel?!

Either way its a fabulous tree taken in a small, but beautiful place called St Breward which is a key part of Bodmin Moor and sits happily about 700ft above sea level (one of the highest points in Cornwall).

Its an amazing place to walk and has a rugged beauty, it is an Area of Oustanding Natural Beauty (ANOB) as well as a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a great place to spot Pearl-bordered fritillary butterflies.

There are many beautiful trees, but this is one of my favourites!

So yeah, that’s it for this week, remember sometimes its just nice to be a tree watcher. Hopefully next weeks post is either gonna be a new embroidered butterfly or possibly some more plant folklore!

Thank you so much for reading this post, and I wish you a prosperous week ahead!

ps. if you like my nature photography and fancy seeing more of it I’ve joined insta @artymissk maybe see you there!

Raising Emperor moths

On By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography7 Comments

Hey friends! Welcome to my first Butterfly tale of 2025!!

Although to be honest its actually about moths, Emperor moths to be precise.

Lets rewind a few months…late last year I was able to watch a few Emperor moth caterpillars form their chrysalises in my garden, unfortunately the plant they were attached to became damaged in one of those really nasty storms we had and I didn’t want the little guys to end up drowning on the floor of my wildspace so I rescued them!

They’ve been living in a little netted pod in my butterfly house all winter and emerged at the beginning of April! It was so damn exciting I genuinely thought that they’d probably died in the storm, but I ended up with a gorgeous male and two gigantic females. I grow two of their favourite caterpillar food plants so it was super easy to give them both a pot of heather and meadowsweet.

The three of them all emerged within about half an hour of each other and by the evening the male was mating with one of the females and the next morning she was laying eggs! 

Continue reading “Raising Emperor moths” →